


Letting go

by CourtneyFG



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 17:07:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2700725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourtneyFG/pseuds/CourtneyFG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Carmilla's death Laura clears out Carmilla's side of the room but it's the contents of her duffel bag that prove to be the most interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting go

It’s been two weeks since Carmilla’s death and you know you can’t keep her side of the room as a shrine to her much longer, even though Perry has tried her hardest to let you keep the room to yourself, another girl is due to move in. Most of the stuff on her side of the room was Betty’s to start with so when Perry and Laf come to help you clean out her stuff you just tell them to trow it all out or give it to good will. The only thing you hold onto is the duffel bag she moved in with, that and its contents.

 

It takes you another two weeks before you work up the courage to look inside the bag. It feels too much like invading her privacy because you know that it contains the possessions she held most dear. Right at the top of things in the army green duffel is a dirty shirt, the black one with the floaty sleaves that showed off a slither of her tummy and you smile at the memory of the dance lesson she gave you while wearing it. You bring the shirt to your face and take a deep inhale of her sent before you shove it under your pillow and delve deeper into the bag.

 

The next item you retrieve is what looks like an old leather bound diary. When you open it you realise that it’s not a diary at all, it’s her sketch book, you didn’t even know she could draw. The earliest entries are dated 1946 and they are all of the same girl with a mole under her right eye. The detail is heart breaking. As the decade move on there are drawings of other girls, sometimes the skyline of a city you don’t recognise. During the 70’s she drew only hands, there’s this one of a female’s hand holding a cigarette and you think it looks like her small delicate hand. When you get to 2014 it’s the first time you realise she drawn the same face more than once, since the first face in the book. And it’s your face. You smiling, you with your angry scrunched up face, you remember how she told you how she thought that it was cute. You close the book and add it to the books on the shelf behind you bed.

 

You scrounge around the bottom of the bag for some smaller items and you pull out an old ornate locket. You open it up and inside are two, miniature, hand painted portraits. You stare at them for the longest time, studying their features. You note how Carmilla has the same dark wavy hair as her mother, as well as her mothers chin and mouth. Her beautiful dark eyes belong to her father though so do her chiselled cheekbones. Her nose is a mix of the two and is therefore, you decide, singularly hers. You close the locket and hang it around your own neck and slip it under your shirt.

 

With the exception of some decades of accumulated rubbish that lie at the bottom of the bag, the only thing left is a small wooden box about the size of a deck of playing cards. You slide the lid open and inside is a ring and a letter addressed to you. Your hands tremble as you open the letter and start to read.

 

_My Dearest Laura,_

_I’ve never found the words to express to you how I honestly feel about you. Through out my life I’ve been hurt by many and this has left me hard and untrusting. When I met you I was a scared fragile girl hiding behind a visage of confidence and indifference. Although it has taken me some time, I have quite warmed to you and I am now ready to let you fully into my life. No more secrets hidden behind apologetic eyes. If I escape the clutches of my Maman, I hope you and I can spend a lifetime fully acquainting ourselves with each other. There are so many things I am eager to share with you, as do I hope you learn new and exciting things about you._

_The ring in the box belonged to my_ _Mère, it is the only thing of hers that I own, besides the locket that hangs around my own neck, and I want you to have it. I would be honoured if you would wear it._

_I look forward to our adventure together. I shall see you tomorrow at the docks as we embark on our journey to America._

_Your ever loving,_

_Mircalla_

You can hold back the tears from your eyes as it all sinks in, and starts to make sense. When she said ‘Elle’ she meant ‘L’ as in, ‘L for Laura’. This letter was never meant for you. You had never really pressed the subject of her ex lover and so never realised that the two of you shared the same name. This was why she avoided calling your by your real name as much as possible, always preferring her stupid pet names for you. You cry for her, not because she is gone, but because you realise she was in all this pain and she never got to speak to anyone about it, always suffering alone. You tuck the letter and the ring back into the box and set it to the side.

 

You take the duffel bag over to the bin and upend it over the bin it to empty the rubbish, then throw it under your bed. You head to the kitchenette and find a cake lifter that Perry left behind once and you manage to find a candle as well that manage to escape the purge of Carmilla’s belongings. You collect the small wooden box and with the cake lifter in hand and the candle in your back pocket, you leave the dorm room.

 

It’s just on dusk as you head out into the woods at the edge of campus. You’ve heard some of the students talk about a clearing about 2 kilometres in and you decide that it would be a good spot with a clear view of the sky. The walk takes you about 10 minutes but when you reach the clearing you know that this is the right thing to do. You pick a large tree at the edge of the clearing and use the cake lifter to dig a hole beneath it. You only dig down about 40 centimetres before your arms are tired, so you decide that will have to do. You place the box containing the letter and the ring in the bottom of the hole and cover it over, carefully packing the soil back into place.

 

This box is the closet thing to her body you’ll ever have to bury. The letter is a small piece of her heart and the ring is simultaneously her history and her hope for the future. You stand up and speak to the empty clearing.

 

‘Carmilla, I love you and while I never got to tell you that in person I hope that you at least knew how much you mean to me. I will always love you. You gave me your trust and you laid down your life for mine. I promise I will never forget you.’

You take the candle out of your pocket and half burry it in the freshly dug soil before you light it. You pick up the cake lifter and use it to crudely carve her name into the tree. It’s nothing of the grandeur she deserves but you feel like this is what she would have wanted, to lay at rest where she can see the stars in peace.

 

When you arrive back at your dorm room there’s a note from Perry stuck to your door, informing you that your new roommate will arrive in the morning. And you think that you might just be ready for this.


End file.
